Free Silver by Andrew Motion Page A

‘The First Epistle to the Thessalonians, chapter five, verse five.’
    At this Natty also rose to her feet and edged away from her mother – glancing uncertainly from me to her and then back again. Mrs Silver ignored this. ‘Go to your task then,’ she continued. ‘Go to your task, young man. Come back when it is done and I shall decide whose work you do. And you, young lady’ – she darted another look at her daughter, which had nothing of a mother’s love in it, but only jealousy and disdain – ‘you go with your young man and do your father’s bidding. It is your practice, after all.’
    In the agitation of the moment, with candlelight shifting across every surface, it was impossible to see what effect this little tirade had on Natty. Outwardly she remained calm, extending a hand to help her mother stand. But I do not think it was in my imagination that I saw the colour of her face deepen, and a strange low fire – more like coals than flames – burn in her eyes.
    The blaze continued for a moment, then receded as Mrs Silver heaved upright. Whether or not she had noticed Natty’s discomfiture, she wanted to end our interview as suddenly as it had begun. Although I had no experience of what it meant to have a mother, this struck me as nothing less than unkind. The rapid changes in the temperature of her mood, and the remorselessness she now showed, might have threatened the happiness of any childhood. When such things combined with the influence of such a husband, they might shipwreck it altogether.
    There was no time to dwell on these thoughts, since Mrs Silver was suddenly all business, shooing at us as if we were chickens, while the folds of her dress quaked and its hems hissed along the floor, which made the candle-shadows sway about us even more violently. As she scuttled towards the door there was no word of goodbye, no blessing for our journey, only an absolute determination to see us gone – as though she had just remembered a matter of far greater importance than anything our plans could represent.
    My own desire to leave the house was equally powerful; I did not even wait for Natty, but quickly bounded down one flight of stairs, then along the landing past the taproom, then down the last flight and so into the street. Until she caught up with me, I was glad to be alone. In the last few hours I had grown so used to others knowing my future, it was almost shocking to realise I still had the chance to reject everything Mr Silver had offered. I told myself it would be the easiest thing in the world to melt into a side street, find my way home to the Hispaniola, and ignore any further visits and instructions from the Spyglass.
    The easiest thing – but impossible, since all my ties of loyalty to my father, and all my instincts for safety, were as nothing compared to the feelings that now worked against them. To speak plainly: Natty had caught me in a bewitchment far stronger than any of the reasonsI had to shun her. The more doubtful I felt about the character of her parents, the more willing I was to think of her as their
victim
– the prisoner of their wildness and eccentricity. Yet such was her power over me, and my desire to please her, I did not feel inclined to rescue her from her father’s designs – but rather to accept them. I now see my reasoning was casuistic, and I cannot admire it. At the time I was content, since it allowed me to suppose that my betrayal of my own father was not an act of selfishness, but of kindness.
    When Natty appeared from the darkness behind me her face was cheerful again: eyes bright, mouth settled into her cat’s smile. Such brave composure confirmed everything I had been thinking. I was not a traitor but a redeemer.

CHAPTER 7

Downriver
    I shall not rehearse the details of our return to the Hispaniola, except to say the river, in which the tide had turned, and then turned again, made us labour hard to reach our destination. As we toiled along, with the light